Ways of Knowing Nature

What is a way of knowing?

• Value. – What you think is important.

• Way of Knowing – the type of experiences you have had. The ‘lens’ through which you look at something.

• Perspective – The way that we look at something

• Very closely linked – the experiences we have had influence what we think is important, which influence the experiences we choose to have.

Example

Relationship• Value, Past experiences, perspective =

Perception

Perspectives

Young lady or old lady?

What do you see?

• Vase or two faces?

What’s in the bottle

• When this image is shown to children, they only see dolphins!

Stare at the image for a whole minute. Try not to blink.Now look at a blank white space.

What do you see?

Lenses

• Imagine you are wearing red sunglasses.• What colour do you see the world?• What about green sunglasses?• What about no sunglasses?• Do you think anyone wears no sunglasses?• Why?

What are the main ways of knowing (perspectives) a natural environment?• In Australia we have many different

environments. We can explore them in different ways including:

• Ecological Perspective• Social & Historical Perspective• Economical Perspective• Knowing Environment as a Tourist• Understanding Experientially

We all have sunglasses.

• No-one see’s the world exactly the way it is.• The more you investigate and try to

understand it, the more you use one perspective.

• If you want to know more, you might research – scientific perspective! – historical perspective!

Ecological Perspective

• Studying the non-human aspects of an environment.

• You might research how the continent of Australia became how it is now, why is has certain species, or how these species interact which each others.

• If you do this, you understand the ecology of the environment. You are looking at it through an ecological perspective.

• How do you think you will value the environment if you look at it in this way?

• Think back to motivations that we talked about in term 1. What type of motivation do you think you will have for going into the outdoors?

• Which of our actors may be looking at the area with an ecological perspective

How do we look at things from an economical perspective!

Economic view 1 – I want the money!

• Entering natural environments for the purpose of making money.

• You think of some examples.

Economic View 2 – I’m helping people

• Our economy – the money that we all have – is based on using natural resources, in one way or another.

• If we take this and don’t replace it, the economy will collapse – no money for everyone.

• But, if we stop doing it, where will our money come from?• there are – forest managers

- harvesters

- Truck drivers

- saw millers

- timber processors

- manufacturers

- craftsmen

Local Example

• Ecological Perspective“We should shut down the APM because….”

• Economical Perspective“We should keep using the APM because…..”

• Can it help us understand our environment?

• Who knows how to fix a problem in my car engine – me or my mechanic? Why?

• Who will know more about a stretch of grazing land in North Queensland, the Rancher or the tourist? Why?

• See if you can use this to answer the last box on the table.